Learning, Growing, and Feeling Successful!

As I head into my final year at Temple University, I’ve begun to feel incredibly bitter-sweet about ending my college journey. For the past three years, I have been studying advertising for my major and psychology for my minor. I decided to pair my major with psychology, because I believe that the most important factor to being successful within the marketing industry is being able to understand how people interpret the world around them. I have really grown and learned so much throughout my education at Temple and was excited for the opportunity to be offered a marketing internship this summer at TSI in Wayne, PA.

Like most undergraduate students, as eager as I was to begin working at my internship, I was also incredibly nervous. What would it be like to work in an office environment? What if I wasn’t as fully prepared to tackle the assignments given to me as I presumed I would be? How would I cope with working a full-time job? These questions plus so many others played around in my head, before I arrived for my first day.

On the first day arriving to TSI’s office, I was given my own desk area with a computer and phone before diving into my first official meeting. Along with the other interns that were hired, I gathered into the conference room with the head of each department of the company, along with the CEO, Chris Smith. The purpose of the meeting was to give the interns a deeper understanding of TSI, along with outlining every project we would be completing over the next 10 weeks. It finally felt more realistic that I would be spending my entire summer as a marketing intern, getting my first taste of what it will be like working in this industry.

Although initially, it was overwhelming to see how much work we were going to be doing, this summer has been nothing short of amazing! Throughout the summer, I have worked on a variety of projects, including publishing a blog on TSI’s website, creating a social media calendar with original content, and organizing a marketing campaign with a $10,000 budget. It was exciting to finally be working on projects outside of the classroom setting and for an actual business. I was enthusiastic about coming to work everyday knowing that I was making a true impact at TSI by assisting and contributing in their business strategies.

Overall, this internship has taught me so much about what it will be like working in marketing and advertising, along with how diverse the work within the field can be. There are a vast amount of avenues and opportunities when entering into this field, and I can’t wait to discover exactly where I will arrive on my career journey. Three incredibly valuable pieces of information that I will take with me into my future include:

Believe in yourself and always give 1000%

Confidence in what you do is the first step in becoming successful. If you are not confident in yourself, nobody will be. Believe in yourself and recognize that you are working to the best of your ability.

Accept critique and appreciate it

Productive criticism is a necessity to anything on which you are working. It is not meant to mock what you have produced, but instead, it is to help further develop your ideas and utilize them to their best capabilities.

Be passionate about your job and enjoy it!

Always make sure you adore what job it is in which you land. If you are not truly enthusiastic about it, look around for other opportunities. Especially with marketing, there are so many different types of jobs you could acquire, and it’s best to discover exactly your niche. Never settle!

One thought on “Learning, Growing, and Feeling Successful!”

Dakota Fostersaid:

Hello Arielle! I enjoyed reading your post and heavily relate to it. I am heavily nervous about working in an office and in the real world. Mostly, based around the fact that everything I do isn’t for a grade – this is real-world work now. On top of that, I have always had a hard time accepting critique, but from reading this, it seems like it probably helped you move through the projects with ease. If you can do it, I can definitely do it. The advice about looking around and never settle applies so much to me, at a time where I don’t know exactly my passion. It is good to know that other people my age feel that way as well. It is hard in the real world but thanks for being positive about it! Thanks for sharing your positivity too!